Artie and his friends are back for a second adventure in the halls of Camelot Middle School! This time, Dragon Day is upon them, with its charity auction and robot duel. The Horde is back, too, demanding that Artie's friend Percy build them a winning robot. Nobody wants to go up against the Horde, least of all Artie--so when he learns that someone signed him up against his will, his only option is to find someone who can help him build a better bot! The secret weapon Artie acquires would be just the thing to help him win the contest--but he can't shake the feeling that using it is just the sort of thing the Horde would do.

As with The Dodgeball Chronicles, the artwork is inviting and the action pulls readers along. The writing is smoother in this second book (possibly due to the need for less exposition) and the characters' personalities are distinct from each other. More than objective benchmarks about quality, though, this is a good graphic novel for upper-elementary students about cheating and bullying (namely, don't do either one), with the messages delivered subtly. Do Artie's friends help him out with building the robot? How do they fare in the contest? Adults won't find many surprises here, but the target audience will enjoy the drama leading up to these answers. ( )

This book is about a boy named Artie. Artie and his friends have huge plans on building a remote controlled dragon. They wanted to enter it in a rebot tournament, but a bully steals their design! They decide to had a techno whiz kids to help them, Evo. Evo makes Artie a remote control that will shut down the other players robots. Artie must decide whether to cheat or do the right thing.

I like the story line in this book. Still not to keen on the comic style of this book. But all and all, its a good book.

In the classroom, have the children talk about a time when they had to choose between right and wrong. What did they choose? Also, you could have them draw a picture of what their robot would look like.

Probably won't read any more of these, mainly just because the audience is obviously from younger kids. Clever touches of Arthurian legends. Only criticism would be there's some abrupt narration changes. ( )